Luxembourg among the leaders in innovation in Europe

A survey conducted between 2008 and 2010 across Europe revealed that Luxembourg is among the union's leaders in innovative enterprises, with 68 percent involved in innovation activities.

11.01.2013

(CS) A survey conducted between 2008 and 2010 across Europe revealed that Luxembourg is among the union's leaders in innovative enterprises, with 68 percent involved in innovation activities.

Also at the top of the leader board were Germany (79 percent) and Belgium (61 percent). The lowest innovation activity was recorded in Latvia (30 percent), Poland (28 percent) and Bulgaria (27 percent).

The survey looked at product and process innovation as well as organisational and marketing innovation, measured by a broad set of indicators such as expenditure, cooperations or patents. It also includes information on skills and creativity.

Enterprises from different sectors and of different sizes were consulted for the study.

Luxembourg a top collaborator with India & China

On average 52.9 percent of enterprises were involved in innovation activity, with around one in nine co-operating with European partners.

While EU member states, countries in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as well as acceding or candidate countries were among the most popular cooperation partners, the study also shows significant collaborations with the US, as well as India and China.

In Luxembourg, 27.2 percent of enterprises collaborated with partners from within the EU or EFTA, with 7 percent opting for US ties and 6 percent for India and China.

This marks Luxembourg as one of the biggest collaborators with the latter countries on par with Slovenia and only topped by Sweden (6.8 percent) and Finland (8.9 percent).

Italian enterprises prefer using internal resources

Finland also saw the highest amount of enterprises working together with US partners at 12.2 percent.

The least cooperative country seemed to be Italy, with only 12.1 percent of enterprises working with other enterprises or institutions. Only 4 percent collaborated with European partners, opposite the highest number of 34.8 percent in Slovenia.

Italy also showed the lowest number of enterprises involved in US collaborations (1 percent) and the second-lowest for India and China (0.8 percent), with only Spanish enterprises showing a lower number of enterprises involved in collaborations with these countries (0.5 percent).

Overall, however, Italy ranked above the EU27 average with 56.3 percent of enterprises involved in innovation activity.

For the full Eurostat report visit eurostat.ec.eu and for more information on research and innovation in Luxembourg visit innovation.public.lu